How to take care of panic attack during defence

I usually struck with panic attack whenever i have bad position.  The symptoms are so strong that i often lost the desire to do defence. Countless hours of practising tactics on defense is not helping me. I give up whenever i have bad position not by resigning but by playing more nonsensical move and it always results in deteriorating my position even further  more from where i have no hope to continue the struggle . This cycle usually goes on and on. I mean: bad position,  bad move,  created more bad position, again bad move and created even more bad position. 

I usually get more nervous when I think I am winning in a sharp position; it is like I am nervous to continue holding the initiative. A scenario like me playing a (hopefully sound) sacrifice makes me more nervous, because I know I can easily blow the game if I lose the initiative or miss a small detail. 

Whenever I am in a "losing" position, I usually try to calm down. Take some deep breaths and try looking at the position in a creative way. If losing, then how can I gain the advantage? Can I create counterplay? Maybe I can complicate the position? Perhaps it is psychological, but I don't get as anxious in losing positions; I don't have as much to lose, so I fight with everything I've got. The positions that scare me the most are the ones that I believe are theoretically winning for me, but tough to convert, or navigate.

It seems like you and i are of opposite orientation. You seems to get nervous when winning, and i get nervous when losing. Or am i missing something? Anyway, i thought about it for a long time by comparing your comment.  The only advice i can give to myself is that it is better to play the board. Atleast then,  i would not miss the easy moves. Hopefully, my play the board advice will be applicable to you also.

If I am losing until such point when there is no point defending the king, I will look out for opportunities to swindle my opponent. Such is the case in the following game where I was the winning player but was close to being swindled. My opponent was losing but found a nice swindle in the game and nearly succeeded.

@ABC_of_EVERYTHING, ignore the first few crappy moves out of the opening and skip to move 23 for the part where I almost got swindled.

eric,  I didn't made this thread asking people how to play on losing position. I made this thread asking to play on position which need proper defence on slightly worse position or you will be doom. 

I was inspired to make this thread by playing this daily game

When my opponent got open file,  i just should had played the board or better capture the pawn the other way. Instead,  i was struck with psychological breakdown and lost the fight pretty naive. 

Your opponent attempt to swindle the board was pretty good,  forking the king and queen with his rook. I am sure that was a 3 min blitz game. Such a cheap swindle 

That game was a 10 min game per side with no increment, played 2 years ago against my fellow local chess club player (but the game was played online, not at the chess club).

The thing is, sometimes it is really difficult to put up a strong defence in a losing position. From my understanding, you are attempting to regain your positional control in a positionally losing position.

Think of it this way. In two armies where everything is equal, if one side somehow manages to wipe out a portion of the opposing army, trust me, it is not just about losing a few members of the army. The remaining members of the army, with fewer members, will also have an overall lower amount or resources available for fighting, and the winning side will have an easier job afterwards.

In your situation, it seems difficult to defend the pawn after the open file was generated. Instead of 23...g6, I looked at alternative avenues such as 23...c5. But having said that, you had a nice bishop on a6 pinning the pawn on c4 which can also move back to c8 where necessary. I look into these as I play out the board.

For me, to achieve my current rating, I always tell myself (although in principle it is not a good idea) that

1. I need not necessarily play the best moves, but I must at least be able to maintain the position.

2. I do not care if I am losing, I always tell myself that in a lost position, there is nothing more to lose, so just play on and look for avenues to swindle my opponents (this applies even in longer controls for me).

3. If I am really in a positionally lost position but the number of pieces are more or less equal, I just look at "nonsensical" moves no matter how "nonsensical" they are.

4. There are always lessons to take away from a loss if the game indeed turns out to be a loss.

This, over time, forms part of my current experience on playing chess. I have poor opening knowledge, but I will always try nonsensical moves even in positionally losing positions in an attempt to try and swindle my opponent into a loss.

For me, unless you are playing again computers, there is no such thing as "proper defence or doom" unless your position is severely terrible (like two rooks in the seventh rank with an obviously imminent loss) or your piece count is in bad shape. I view your position on move 22 as a regular position where it is just a placement of two rooks on the f-file "and nothing else". With the e4 pawn keeping Qxh7# at bay, the dark-squared White bishop being unable to invade effectively into the enemy territory and a well-defended Black king, I do not see how White will progress anytime quickly. White does not have a concrete plan to break through the position and the game will drag on for moves.

From this, what runs into my head is this. "The White rooks are lined up but it cannot do much damage. Bishop cannot do much either. The queen is still behind. As long as I do not allow White's other pieces to invade the position and I keep the active pieces inactive, I am safe."

More often than not, a threat is stronger than the actual execution, so if an opponent tries to double the rooks in that fashion, I often refrain myself from getting alarmed.

In the worst case scenario where my position has collapsed fully, I just allow my opponent to infiltrate while I try out antics on the other side with my remaining pieces.

Indeed, there was one special game in which I panicked after having missed a "tactic for Black". Upon analysis both of us determined that the "missed tactic by Black" actually led to Black's doom! I panicked for something inexistent and lost very quickly.

I am unable to post the game from Black's point of view without the move list "disappearing", so I will have to post the game from White's point of view for the time being (until such time when the move list does not disappear anymore).

The whole story of how I felt in the game was contained in this topic https://www.chess.com/forum/view/game-analysis/when-a-winning-move-turns-out-to-be-a-doomsday-move detailing how my panicked state led to my loss. Actually my position was already lost as I threw away pieces to attempt and deliver a non-existent checkmate, but my panicked state accelerates my loss.

Majority of chess players experience this problem in one form or some other, and the truth is it goes beyond the game.

It's all in the mind. Remind yourself that you're here to have fun. A bad position is just another puzzle to play with. Sure you'll get frustrated, but catch yourself, say "hey! Take a right!" And play the game.

I take games as doing a serious activity but have fun.  I am trying to learn to play the board instead of depending on psychological factor  with changing  position. It is nice that you also think that way like having fun and sometime i.e it is better not to show emotion while having  difficult position at hand. 

The most difficult part is when you defeat yourself. You just look at the position and you're like - I'd beat me in this position. You sort of don't want to finish that game.

Exactly. I think the way to do this is to look for pattern and as you go along, try to create additional pattern.  And create traps basically on that fluid pattern. 

I just basically  smoked 2 cheap cigarettes in my lifetime and i didn't enjoy. 

Yes,  cigarette and alcohol are bad. 

I feel nervous in losing positions and in winning positions lol.

My advice is to play the board and as @optimissed  had said create traps on losing position 

That's a great suggestion and i definitely going to used and apply it. 

You have described  the symptoms, the factors and how to deal with the symptoms. 

But something is still missing like I don't know how to calm down,  breath normally and i just don't tinkle  enough to learn about bad position. In daily chess, because of ample time to play the moves,  there it is possible to develop defensive skill because you can analyse the position for the whole day and do in your disposal whatever the resources is there. If you are too demotivated,  go other the house and stroll on a nearby town or park.   In this way you can forget the pressure and stress for a brief interval of time. And thereby when you return to the house,  you can make the moves afresh.